Planning ahead for the New Year

Hip hip hurray, it’s the New Year. Three hundred and sixty-five days, five hundred and twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes and thirty-one million, five hundred and thirty-six thousand seconds gone by just like that. It is a time to start afresh and set new goals especially financial goals. At this particular time of the year many people begin to make New Year’s resolutions, however many of these resolutions are just wishes that never become reality. Worse still many of these do not relate to personal or business finance issues. It is not enough to just say I would get out of debt in 2014 or I would give more to charity. How do you intend to make this a reality?  It is therefore not enough to just make resolutions instead it is more profitable to set goals. You may ask, what is the difference between a resolution and a goal? According to the Oxford Dictionary, resolution can be defined as “a firm decision to do or not to do something”, whilst according to the Business Dictionary “a goal is an observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed time frame”. Essentially a goal must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and Time bound). As 2014 commences, it is a time to Reflect, Refocus and Review...... continue reading